Bullets in Beacon Hills
by StrangeLittleSwirl
Summary: Lydia Martin, the directionless divorcee with a thing for numbers and shoes she can no longer afford, returns to a suddenly seedy Beacon Hills and finds employment at a bail bond agency. With help from bounty hunter Derek 'Alpha' Hale and her own genius math skills, she just might have what it takes to get her man. AU/AH Inspired by the Stephanie Plum series for Dydia Week.


**Bullets in Beacon Hills (1/3)**

This was supposed to be for AU Thursday of Dydia Week on Tumblr, but eh, work got in the way.

**Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, sadly. Thanks to Janet Evanovich for writing the Stephanie Plum books and helping me to accept my Jersey girl self. **

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**L**ydia took a deep breath and released her death grip on the steering wheel. "Alright Martin," she addressed her reflection in the rear view mirror, "Okay. Let's get this show on the road."

She knew her makeup was flawless, her hair smooth and enviable. The shitty car she was exiting, well, she couldn't do much about, but she was really hoping Allison's excitement to see her was enough to distract her friend.

There was a few years old sedan that was spotless and a worse for wear pickup truck in the driveway of the small house. Based off of her memory of the neighborhood from her youth, Lydia guessed it to have the basic layout of a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and small bedroom on the first floor, a larger bedroom on the second floor of the house, with a steeple ceiling. It fit in perfectly with the other similar homes in the quiet, residential neighborhood. Kids were playing in the street and front doors were unlocked. For Scott and Allison and their combined incomes, the home was modest and a starter, a home they would definitely move from when they started to grow their family.

Lydia's stomach took a lurch when she saw the small caution sign stuck to the back window of the pickup truck. Innocuous, yellow and black, Lydia stared at the harbinger of Big Life-Altering Events just ahead.

The 'baby on board' wasn't something Allison mentioned when they spoke on the phone when Lydia had called and told her friend she was moving back to Beacon Hills. Granted, her friend had sounded happy – she and Scott were a few months past their one-year anniversary and seemed unable to stop the content sighs and smiles they had around one another – but she hadn't shared the big news with her or hinted at it.

There was movement on the second floor, and just as Lydia was climbing the second stair onto the small porch, Allison was swinging her front door open, grinning and breathless, and much to Lydia's relief, not visibly gravid.

"I can't believe you're really here," Allison said as she hugged Lydia tightly. "You look amazing."

Damn right she did. She may not have walked away from her marriage to Jackson Whittemore with much, but her looks and dignity were still intact. She was 25, and she was not going to be one of _those_ divorcees with the heavy bags under the eyes from sleepless nights wondering what went wrong, or the puffy face and red eyes from crying. And she definitely had not let herself go when it came to eating. Appearance had been important to Jackson and herself, and they had eaten well.

Okay, that was a bit of a lie. As she and Allison sat at the kitchen table and she eyed the loaf of pumpernickel carved to hold spinach dip, Lydia had to admit that her diet wasn't as strict as Jackson's had been. She was small and had a metabolism that allowed for a degree of stress eating most people would call excessive. Jackson would have never dreamed of having a cheesesteak and fries for dinner when they were in Philly, not without dedicated another hour to the gym, but nothing stopped his wife from making the drive for one for her lunch. Alone. In a car. Like once a week.

Scott greeted her warmly, pulling her in for a hug when he entered the kitchen, fresh from the shower. Like magnets drawn to one another, Scott pulled up a chair so close to Allison they may as well have been in a shared seat. Allison looked from her husband to her best friend, and guilt seemed to wash over the newlywed for a second.

"Oh, stop," Lydia demanded with a tired sigh. "If I have one more person look at me like they just found out my puppy was hit by a car, I'm going to vomit."

Scott and Allison had dated through the entirety of high school, and even though they had gone to separate colleges, they had been close enough that dates weren't difficult. The only reason they waited to get married was because Scott wanted to save up enough for a ring he felt was 'good enough for Allison', and then it was another two years before they had pooled their savings for their wedding. Allison may have worked for her father's company, but her salary was appropriate for her job, and whatever it was that Scott did paid very well. The couple was insistent that they were making it on their own, and weren't going to rely on Chris Argent for anything.

Lydia looked back on her own choices with a bit of chagrin. Jackson had been an all-star athlete with decent grades and a lawyer for a father who had been willing to pay for everything including the airfare for whatever pre-law program he wanted. He was going places. He was a safe choice. Lydia had heavily hinted at a college that was well known for its mathematics department as well as the renown professors for their law program. When Jackson got his acceptance letter, Lydia pulled out her letter from the same school, which had been hidden away since she'd been admitted early. It was on the East Coast. It was a start for them.

They got an apartment off campus, and had what Lydia had considered an elegant and appropriately grand wedding during their sophomore year of college. She was an honors student who took to applied statistics like a duck to water. Jackson had a more difficult time with his classes, and Lydia found herself writing more than one of his papers.

When he announced he was transferring to a smaller school in Philly, Lydia found out too late to apply for a transfer herself. She was fine with it, really. She'd just go back to school in the next semester.

But then they were always busy. The Whittemore family had moved to the East Coast, and Lydia found her schedule filled with committees, dinners, and 'doing lunch' with women a little older than her. She settled into it all with apparent ease, but when she took a step back and let the competitive gleam in her eye fade, she felt overwhelmed. There was talk of a political career for Jackson. There was rumination on their future children. Part of Lydia felt like she was playing dress up, but she'd never let on.

Jackson had always kept to himself, and Lydia had been fine with it. When he stopped even giving her excuses for his absences and spent days away, she pulled out her copy of their prenuptials but decided against the consideration she'd been flirting with.

It wasn't until four months later that she finally decided to get a divorce. Lydia returned home from another round of evading questions about the children she had not had yet and the disproving intonation of her mother-in-law's voice due to her decision on the table linen colors for a charity luncheon to find Jackson drunk and sobbing. He refused to tell her what was wrong, and so in turn, Lydia refused to tell him her reasons for the divorce until it was time to write it on the divorce papers.

So here she was, the unprodigal daughter, the college dropout, the divorcee as her friends were only just getting married and having babies. Lydia Once More Martin, the directionless girl with a thing for numbers and shoes she could no longer afford.

It got to the point in the conversation where Allison asked what Lydia was doing about a job, and she gave her a glossy answer about having some interviews around the area, waiting to be contacted back. Allison seemed to accept her half-answer with a slow nod – a sign of just how much their friendship had eroded with distance and time – but Scott's mouth pursed slightly and his brows scrunched for a split instant.

Beer, dip, and bread finished off, Lydia noticed the late hour, and told them she should get going.

"I'll walk you out, Lydia," offered Scott. Allison gave him an appreciative smile.

"That's really not necessary," Lydia argued, but her friend shook her head.

"Beacon Hills has changed since we were kids," Allison explained. "You should stop by the store, Lydia. I want to make sure you're safe, since you're in that apartment by yourself."

The last Lydia knew, her friend sold guns. The suggestion sat heavily in her gut.

Scott and Lydia walked out to the dark street in silence, and she noticed that all of front doors were now closed, curtains drawn. He waited to talk until she'd rolled the window down to thank him before he handed her the business card.

"If you're looking for a temporary fix on the job thing," he explained and pointed at the card. "They need help in their office. They won't ask about your degree or anything, but you're smart and organized and they could use that right now."

It wasn't until Lydia was back in her tiny (and temporary, she promised herself) apartment that she looked at the words on the white cardstock. They were a DIY print job, with a little clipart of handcuffs and the words 'BEACON HILLS BONDS' printed across the top in intentionally rough font.

A bondsman in Beacon Hills? The town really must have changed.

**L**ydia dressed to impress for her interview at Beacon Hill Bonds. She put on a nice blouse and skirt with a smart looking pair of heels and the ensemble almost countered the crappy rental car.

Her mother and father had made it perfectly clear when she had married Jackson she was making a decision to be an adult on her terms, but they were not supporting the choice. Now, back in Beacon Hills, she was pretty much stuck in the exact spot her parents had warned her she'd land.

Beacon Hills didn't really have a Main Street, but there was a business section of sorts, which was located close to the town hall and police department. The store was a few blocks over from the police department. Buildings were mostly brick and bleak and outdated. On her way over, Lydia had noticed for herself that there seemed to be a more rundown appearance to the town. The news the night before had reported shootings and drug charges; Lydia remembered a time when the big story of the night was a pancake toss at the Moose Lodge. The bad economy and growing crime issues of the area surrounding Beacon Hills seemed to have finally infiltrated the sleepy little town.

Beacon Hills Bonds had clearly been in business for some time, judging by the state of the signage and chipping letters on the door. It looked ugly, but so were her chances at the other jobs she had not heard back from. And like Scott had said, it would be temporary.

Lydia recognized the woman at the receptionist's desk. She had been two years ahead of Lydia in high school, and she remembered her as a no-nonsense captain of their volleyball team; her name had been mentioned regularly in the overhead morning announcements about bowling team victories, too.

"Sophie Leibowitz?" she asked, as she walked across the commercial carpeting.

"It's Greenberg now," the woman responded, "and I appreciate your condolences…I remember you. You married the Whittemore kid, right? Lydia?"

"It's Lydia Martin again, actually."

Sophie nodded understandingly then threw her a wry, conspiring smile. "It just might be Sophie Leibowitz again soon if my husband doesn't stop fucking around." She settled back into her seat. "What happened, did you get caught trying to shoplift Jimmy Choos like Amber Van Weltz?"

Lydia felt the look of distaste wash over her features before she could stop it. "Certainly not. Scott McCall said you need help in the office?"

Sophie let out a laugh. "Honey, I remember what you were like in school, and even you couldn't help this shithole. We _do_ need someone to do the filing and help with updating the new computer system for accounts, so if you think you'd be up to it, we could use you for that."

Lydia felt a little more hopeful about her chances of securing some steady form of income. "Great. When do you have availability for my interview?"

"Do you know the alphabet?"

Lydia raised an eyebrow and bit back the snarky retort burning on the tip of her tongue. "Of course," she said instead.

"Can you turn a computer on?"

"If it's plugged in or has a battery, yes."

The seated woman gave a sarcastic round of applause. "Congrats. Interview done. As long as you can show up four or five days a week for a few hours and your hangover doesn't impede your productivity too much, you're hired."

That burgeoning confidence was squashed when she realized just how easy the process had been. "Don't I need to see your boss for an interview? Fill out an application?"

"And what, make more work for me?" Sophie asked, nonplussed. "No thanks. And I try to keep Peter Hale out of my life as much as possible. I sit here and do nothing for hours on end and he can sit in the back abusing himself or whatever it is that he does in there. We've got quite the work dynamic going."

The last Lydia had heard of Peter Hale was that he was drooling into his applesauce at the nursing home, the lone surviving victim of a house fire that had left him comatose and scarred. That had been around the same time Laura Hale, his niece, had been found murdered. That shook the town back then; from the looks of things, that might not be the case if it had happened now.

Lydia looked around the office. "How long has this place been in business?"

"Since Peter made a miraculous recovery and decided to become a full-time sleaze ball to make up for all the missed opportunities to be a perverted freak. Know this now: if you're on the good side of 60 and possibly female, he'll make a pass at you. The only reason I still work for him is because a discount on bail bonds comes in handy; my husband isn't a criminal, but he's stupid and once you get that first call from the prison starting with 'Honey, I can explain,' it's all downhill from there."

Lydia spent the next two hours learning about the work process and a little more about the business itself before Sophie let her free. Head full of new information and stomach empty, Lydia walked the two blocks to the coffee shop she had seen on her way over.

She recognized the tan and beige uniform on the person moving towards the door with coffees double stacked precariously in takeout carriers and held the door open for whoever it was from the Sheriff's department coming out.

"Thank you," the person said, chin pressing into a bakery bag. "Consider that your civic duty for the d-_Lydia_?!"

Lydia watched Stiles Stilinski flounder with his stack of cups in a state of shock. He was still impossibly tall, and a bit gangly, but was that…shit, there was a bit of muscle on him. And his hair – it was nice. She helped him steady the coffee and they both stood speechless for a moment.

Stiles was Scott's best friend and had been completely in love with Lydia for more years than either could remember, but according to what others had told her, his crush had tapered off by their senior year when it became clear she and Jackson were serious. They'd never been really been friends, but they had shared classes, knew some of the same people, and had gone to enough of the same parties back in high school to make it seem in hindsight like they practically were.

Lydia had started to notice recently that after almost a decade, those defining lines between old acquaintance and friend had blurred and simply having something in common with someone was enough to make her want to reconnect. She'd accepted a few lunch and dinner offers from similar people, and by the time she and Stiles were finished stammering out their greetings and the customary 'you look great's, she had another dinner to plan for.

Lydia ordered her coffee and a pastry, and while she waited for her order, she mentally browsed through her clothing rack and tried to figure out what she'd wear when she met up with Stiles…

And then went from mentally browsing to slapping herself. She remembered what this line of thinking was; it had been approximately 9 years since she'd had to do the 'first date thing', but she recognized the line of thought, and chided herself for it. He'd asked to catch up, not go out.

"Get a grip, Martin," she said aloud once she was in her car with her purchases.

"**C**ome on, sweetheart," cajoled Peter, but Lydia continued on her path from his office door to her computer.

"Go to hell, Peter," Lydia replied tartly, clicking away with more gusto than needed. "Consider me immune to your charms. There's no way I'd consider your offer."

It was her third week on the job and only the seventh time Peter had tried to get her to go to dinner with him. Maybe it was because of the way he looked at any woman who came into their office. Maybe it was noises she heard from behind his door – both his grunts and the women's moans from his PC. Or maybe it was because he'd asked her out by saying "Honey, shave those lovely little legs of yours, we're going out to dinner." What it boiled down to: Peter Hale was a grade A creep and Sophie's warning was warranted.

Aside from what could be considered very fair grounds for a sexual harassment case, Lydia couldn't complain about the work. It was a steady, but meager paycheck. It was forgiving hours and a coworker who was starting to become a pretty good friend. Since no one else in town was hiring (she had tried, and they wanted her to have a degree or they were former classmates who still held a grudge or parents who remembered when she'd bested their child in a spelling bee or other academic award or scholarship), she was happy she could pay her bills and save a bit up for a car (totally a lie, she knew she was going to probably blow it on shoes).

As a child who wanted for nothing and then the wife of a man with a trust fund, Lydia wasn't used to the whole budgeting thing. She wasn't an idiot; she understood the concept of paying bills and buying only what she could afford and trying to put a little away with every paycheck. The problem was, she knew herself and she knew there was going to come a time where she was in the mall, and there would be a sale, and somehow she'd convince herself that the dress or the shoes or the purse _had_ to come home with her.

And she really needed to get a car – Scott had pulled some strings and found her a loaner – but she needed a long term fix because it smelled like something had died in the trunk and while she'd searched the car over thoroughly, she was worried about getting pulled over because in all of her searching, she hadn't found a VIN plate on the vehicle. She'd watched enough procedural dramas to know that was bad.

She'd met most of the regulars – both the clients and the few agents Peter had working for him. She couldn't call them bounty hunters because it just made her think of that crispy Hawaiian guy in leather with the bleached hair; if she used the term 'agent', as in 'bail enforcement agent', it sounded much more professional. A little gloss didn't hurt, right?

The computer system was almost up to date and the filing more manageable. The lack of progress before Lydia's hire wasn't because of Sophie's lack of trying. The population boom in town combined with the rising crime rate meant there was plenty of business for Peter Hale. Sophie had to make frequent trips down to the station and court house to bond clients, spent time a lot of time on the phone or talking in person with clients and their families. As unemotional as she could be, she was able to provide the emotional support to a person who had to make the difficult choice of putting their house up for the bond charges.

Scott was the biggest surprise when it came to the regular agents. He'd amble in a few times a week for work finding FTAs – 'Failure to Appears', those who missed their court dates, also known as skips. Scott would bring them back to court to be rescheduled for their court date.

But then again, it wasn't that hard to imagine Scott finding a way to calmly cajole someone into going with him after they skipped court. Something about his puppy eyes made people inherently feel guilty. Most people didn't forget something like a court date, so those who failed to appear were usually intentionally doing so. If they didn't show up to court, Peter would owe the court money, and he had the right to obtain the house, car, money, or items that were put up for collateral on the bond by the customer or their family.

Boyd was another regular agent; he had approximately been the size of a house in high school, Lydia remembered. Not the fat kind, just _large_, and he had returned from the army bulked and clearly muscled and it seemed like he'd become a human SUV. He didn't talk much, but he was always polite.

Scott and Boyd would come in together and pick up their own independent cases, and the occasional case they'd pair up on for a high risk FTA – those who had more violent charges or were known to be armed – and split their earnings.

Peter's highest risk skips were reserved for an agent they called 'Al'. Such emphasis was put on the name that Lydia had to imagine it was a nickname. 'Al' rarely came in for files, or if he did, it was so quick that Lydia never saw him. It seemed Peter hated him but was resigned to use him for his bigger cases.

"I understand the lack of black in my interior decorating here goes against his preferred color palette, but is _Al_ going to come in for these cases?" he asked Boyd one day. "I'm not letting them go forfeit. You can deliver that message to his scowly ass."

"He's away on business," was Boyd's response. "We can handle it."

Peter wasn't about to accept the answer or hand over the manila folders. "What do you mean, 'business'?"

Scott pulled the files from his grip with a shrug and a smile. "Watch the news tonight."

And of course, Lydia had to do exactly that, out of more than mild curiosity about Al. She was dozing off on the sofa when they finally got to the international segment of the news. The breaking news was the sudden political shift in a South American country due to the disappearance of the long-reigning dictator. Huh.

Naturally, she got the skinny on Al the next day from Sophie as they were enjoying an extended lunch break while shopping in Macy's.

"'Al' is short for 'Alpha', and he's actually Peter's nephew, Derek Hale," her coworker said while eyeballing a pair of open-toed sling backs that were far from office appropriate. "He was a teenager when their family died in a huge fire, and he and his sister left for New York after. His psycho girlfriend apparently got carted off for arson and manslaughter, but there was more to the case - your friend Allison never talks about Gramps, right? That's cuz he's serving a life sentence for orchestrating the whole thing. His sister got whacked a couple of years ago when she came back. It's all Grade A Sopranos shit."

And suddenly, years of awkward tension between Allison and her family were explained. Lydia couldn't imagine choosing to be very close to a family involved in that kind of thing. Her grandparents sent her $25 in a Christmas card and on her birthday. What did the Argent patriarch send, brass knuckles? The Argent's company must have spent a fortune on PR to keep that quiet, especially since they continued to enjoy a local law enforcement and military weapon contract.

"Word is Alpha joined the military and ended up as some sort of Rambo guy, like stealth operations. Guess it's the healthiest way to handle the sort of anger that would come with a background like that."

Lydia eyed a pair of brown boots that would look perfect with an outfit she had in mind for her next dinner with Stiles (because the first one was downright perfect and really, he'd outgrown the awkward and grown right into 'attractive' and he actually spent most of the dinner talking to her and not her chest so in her mind? Totally dateable in the long run) but put them back down when she saw the price tag.

"So how does he go from Rambo to catching Beacon Hill's finest Neanderthals?" she asked, distracting herself from the boots. She was close to her first savings benchmark – biking to work because of the heat causing weird smells in her car had meant wearing pants every day and the air was getting that pre-fall crispness to it, warning of colder weather ahead. She needed a car.

Sophie shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe it was a family loyalty thing. Maybe he's trying to avenge his family."

Lydia snorted. "Avenging dead parents, penchant for black, and has ninja-like stealth: sounds like Batman."

"You might be onto something with that nickname. Better than Alpha in my opinion, but according to Boyd that was his nickname when he was in Uncle Sam's employ, so go figure."

The afternoon dragged on when they got back to the office; Peter was in a horrible mood, for reasons he wasn't sharing with them. It became clear why when Scott and Boyd came in for Al's skips, saying he still wasn't back.

"And you might want to start to look for another bounty hunter," Scott said apologetically. "Cuz, um, Boyd and I are going to have to scale back our cases."

Peter stared at them. He blinked. "Care to share a reason, gentlemen?"

"Reasons," was Boyd's vague response.

"It's going to take you two days to get those FTAs, what with the precious one brain cell you two have to share between you. What am I supposed to do with these?" Peter gestured towards the few manila folders on Sophie's desk.

Scott actually looked apologetic. "I promise, if we can snag them quickly, I'll stop by McKinnon's place and see if I can convince him to come down with me. If I'm lucky and he's high, I'll tell him he's going to McDonalds. It's worked before."

"Only occasionally," amended Boyd, giving his partner a grim look.

Lydia couldn't help herself. "McKinnon, as in Ralph McKinnon?" she piped up. Scott and Boyd both nodded. "That guy who repeated senior year three times?"

"_Still_ repeating. Never graduated," Boyd informed her.

Scott nodded. "He's very proud to be the longest enrolled student at Beacon Hills High. Sometimes he still goes to the school. I had to pick him up from woodshop once. He was trying to convince the teacher to let him create a giant dick made from scrap material when I showed up to get him down to the station to get bonded again."

Derek gave Scott a serious look. "Honestly I thought the intent behind _Phallus_ _Majorus_ showed artistic merit. Kid's got talent."

"Kid's got a perpetual case of the munchies, unless he runs dry, and then he's wily," argued Sophie, slamming a file drawer shut. "I saw his mom at the grocery store earlier and she was bitching about him being in a foul mood. Have fun reeling him in this time."

"It's like he's coated in Crisco," muttered Boyd.

Scott held his hands up and refused to take the folder. "I'll stick to my suspected murder with a history of carrying concealed and battery. At least I know what I'm getting with _him_. We're going to have our hands full."

Lydia was smart; this was not a statement based solely off of her opinion. There were IQ tests, scholarships, and glowing letters of recommendation from high school teachers of years past.

Sometimes, however, her mouth got the better of her.

"I'll take him." The words were tumbling over her lips before she could stop them. Panic seized her insides as she realized the mistake she just made. _Tell them it was a joke, Martin_, she prodded herself, _while they're still staring at you in shock_.

Sort of like the time she said 'yes' to the marriage proposal from the boy who couldn't even sort his own laundry, Lydia's mouth was convinced it was on to something and not listening to her brain as it screamed at it to stop.

"McKinnon liked me in high school. He climbed into my car one day and made a nest in my backseat out of the costumes from the theater department and took a nap because he said my air freshener was the best smelling one in the parking lot. I mean, I called security on him, but he seemed really understanding about it."

Peter gave her one of those smiles, the sort she'd received more than enough of over the years; it spoke of finding her tits pleasant to look at, and wasn't it cute she thought she was capable of something?

All those years of playing ditzy had backfired.

"That's sweet of you, but I'll just go get him myself," Peter said with a snort.

Sophie looked from Peter to Lydia, and her lips were pressed tightly together. "Do you really want to do this?"

Lydia looked from the files to Scott and Boyd. Scott was looking at her with an expression of disbelief and concern, while it might have been a trick of light, but Boyd's eyebrows looked scrunched. She wouldn't even spare a glance in Peter's direction. "I would like to try. I think I could."

Sophie's well-polished nails grabbed the file out of Peter's hands and held it out to Lydia. "There you go, then. You don't carry mace with you, do you?"

When Lydia started to answer that she didn't, Peter threw his hands up, turned on his heel and disappeared back into his office.

The office manager took Sophie into the storage area and pulled out a can, showing her how to use it. Scott gave her some warnings from his experience with the stuff, and then a few tips on where to find McKinnon.

Now armed and informed, Lydia made her way to her bike with her shoulders set back and her head held high. Time to go home and get the car.

"Okay Martin," she told herself. "We can do this."

"**M**aybe you can't do this," suggested Sophie. "That's the most garbage I've ever seen walk through the door, and Peter is here every day."

"Heard that," came a voice from the back office. Both women glared in the door's direction.

Lydia drew herself up to her full height, wiped a clump of sticky hair out of her face, and shook her head. "I can definitely do this. I got McKinnon and all it took was a McDonald's kid's meal on the way to the station. I didn't expect Melissa LaPierre to try to shoot at me."

She'd felt so proud of herself, driving to the station and getting that first body receipt. 10% of his bond was small, but it was something. McKinnon had been very complacent, happy to munch on his French fries until Peter came to bond him again and his date was rescheduled. Ralph had even shared that this year he'd even gone as far as to sit in on a final for a class…Not one of the ones he was in, but a class.

Her first skip an easy success, Lydia had asked Sophie for another. LaPierre was a newcomer to Beacon Hills and when Lydia had explained where she was from, she'd slammed the door in her face. The determined woman's knocking had only resulted in a gun being shot in her direction through the door. She'd jumped off of the small porch to get out of her range and landed on a bag of trash that had opened under her weight.

Shaken, Lydia had driven around a little bit before remembering she had a date with Stiles tomorrow evening. Not an 'old classmates catching up' dinner, but a dinner date. Their first two meals together had gone so well that she hadn't hesitated when Stiles had asked if they could try the dinner thing again, but in a different context. Allison was going to help her figure out something to wear tomorrow morning.

If Stiles Stilinski could learn how to shoot a gun and work for his old man, she sure as hell could do the same (at least the shooting bit).

Besides, she'd already started to play out in her mind what it would be like when she saw Jackson next (because in her little fantasy, he was going to randomly stop by their home town – she had actually sworn she'd seen him a time or two but it was her imagination). She'd be walking down the street, confident swagger and smirk on her lips, the consummate bounty hunter (okay, the title sounded more badass than she initially thought) who always got her man. There would be witty repartee. He'd walk away realizing what a divinely misguided idiot he had been. She didn't want him back, but she just wanted him to realize what he'd lost.

Between the potential ego boost and the increase in income, Lydia was now dead set on this working out. The garbage thing was disgusting, the gun being drawn nightmare-fuel, but she wanted this. _Needed it_. It wasn't like she could afford to go back to school, and none of the other places she had applied (because even in the first few weeks of working she'd continued to apply elsewhere) had ever contacted her back.

"I need to learn how to shoot a gun…I need to get a gun, I guess. If it takes marathoning 'Dog: the Bounty Hunter' to get to that point, so help me, I will do it. If I could learn enough of the material to teach Jackson his coursework and write his papers when he forgot to, I can do this."

Sophie was giving her a long, blank look. Initially, this had been off-putting to Lydia, but she had come to learn it only meant the woman was gauging her sincerity. Lydia responded with her best icy, resolute expression possible.

Sophie inhaled sharply through her nose, nodding. "Okay. Go home and shower and I'll call you."

Lydia did not budge. "I'm serious, Sophie. I'm not going to give up so eas-"

"Lydia Martin, I am on your side on this," Sophie cut her off, pointing the eraser end of a pencil in her direction as she started to dial someone on her personal cell. "But if he's going to help you, you need to not smell like shit. Go home, take a shower."

She reached into her office drawer and Lydia gaped at the small handgun she produced.

"And until you get your own, you can borrow my spare."

**T**he Rail Line Bar & Restaurant was built in the old shell of the railroad depot. It wasn't the sort of place Lydia would choose to go to, but she could see how it could appeal to the grizzled, criminal sort. Like motorcycle gangs. The building was huge, and on the first floor, the bar was built into a cross-sectioned subway car. ACDC was playing somewhere. The floor was sticky. There were pool tables here and there.

She took a seat in the corner, facing the door. She wasn't quite sure _what_ she was looking for – maybe Melissa LaPierre and her gun – and waited. She had dressed to impress – frothy skirt, nice top and cardigan, and realized now she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Truth be told, Sophie didn't tell her who she was meeting and for what reason, but she'd distracted herself from being nervous by dressing up. She tapped a dove gray, high heeled boot, and waited. The small handgun she had at the bottom of her purse on the floor beside her made her feel twitchy.

A waitress came over and took her order. She didn't trust her stomach to handle more than a cup of coffee for the time being. She looked up to thank her waitress when it was speedily brought over to her, and stifled a yelp of surprise when she went to grab at the sugar packets and saw someone sitting across from her at the table.

The man was dressed in a black leather jacket and a dark shirt, and she could see he'd picked the fitted shirt because it showed off that he was in shape. He was studying her with green eyes under a thick set of eyebrows. He was tan, had dark, unkempt hair, and a voice in Lydia's head was screaming 'dangerous'.

Her defenses snapped into place. "Can I help you?" tumbled out of her lips with a surprising amount of sass dripping from it.

"Sophie said you needed some help," he replied. With the look he gave her and their surroundings, it was obvious from his expression he believed the assistance she really needed was the psychological kind if she'd agreed to meet him. He took a quick sip of his beer. "Lydia, right?"

"And you are?"

"They call me Al."

So this was Derek Hale. He didn't look like his uncle, not at first. The scowl though, that must have been a family thing. He put his emptied bottle down on the table with a definite _clink_, but as he stood there wasn't a noise.

He raised an eyebrow. "Coming?"

Her chair scraped loudly across the floor as she abandoned her untouched coffee. Now facing one another, she could see he wasn't terribly tall (she came up to his shoulder, which was pretty normal), but he seemed to just take up a lot of space. He snorted.

"Something funny?"

He didn't answer, but started winding his way through the seating area to an unmarked door. She heard him mutter something that sounded a lot like 'little'.

Lydia looked around to see if anyone seemed concerned she was following tall dark and cranky into areas unknown. Nope. People seemed to avoid looking at him, actually.

She'd already gone this far, might as well carry on.

She followed him down the stairs into the basement area, and he moved assuredly past the bar's stock shelves to a door. There was a keypad on it, and he quickly punched in the code.

"Is it legal for them to have a shooting range down here?" she asked as they walked in, her heels loudly clicking on the floor.

He turned to face her, nonplussed. "Got a HSC? How about a CCW?" When she didn't answer he turned back around, accepting her silence as the accurate and negative answer, and grabbed a set of bulky over-the-earmuffs off of a table by the door then handed them to her, as well as a small baggy with earplugs in them. "Take these but don't put them on yet. Let me see the gun."

He spent some time showing her how to use the gun, disassemble it, and clean it. He made her go through the process of assembling and reassembling the gun several times, and Lydia felt her patience thinning. Finally after what seemed like the thousandth time she'd completed the task, he nodded.

"Work on that."

When it was finally time to fire the gun, he seemed to make his own appear out of thin air. Hers looked dwarfed in comparison.

She didn't expect the recoil when she pulled the trigger, not after watching him flawlessly fire at target paper that he'd sent down the slide. He had put bullets through the area of the heart and head.

One of hers tore through the paper in the kidney area, the others leaving the edge of the paper with rough edges. She tried to hide her shaking hands, but something about his grim expression made her think he'd seen just how shaken she was by the experience.

His gun disappeared and he gestured for her to take off the earmuffs and pop out the plugs. He put his own down and glanced back to the paper still hanging on the slide.

"Red," he said after a moment of thought, "you're going to need a _lot_ of practice if you're serious about this-"

She glared at him, incensed at the nickname – 'Little' before and now 'Red'…Little Red Riding Hood? Seriously? – and the implication. Why else would she have shown up to the shitty restaurant and risked being caught carrying around a gun she didn't have a permit for? "I _am_ serious about this."

"-And you can't be afraid of your gun," he continued as if she'd never answered. "If a skip senses you're afraid of it, they won't respect you or the gun," he continued. "It's not like you're going to intimidate them with your size." He gestured at her. "Small doesn't equate to scary."

"Yellow jackets are small but one of the most dangerous insects known to man, anthrax powder managed to scare this entire country. It only takes a few grains of salt from the plant _Ricinus communis_ to kill an adult human. Bullets are small, and if they're headed for you, they are terrifying." She spouted the facts easily, even though it had been years since she'd learned any of them. She used to recite the list of them to herself when she was made fun of for her height in school.

He was staring at her, and it was obvious this lesson was all the help she was going to get from him.

"Thanks for the lesson," she muttered insincerely and put the gun back in her purse, bullets in another pocket of the bag. It didn't do much but it felt good to slam the earmuffs down on the table. Her heels clicked at a furious pace as she made her way to the door.

"Red."

Lydia stopped, taking her time to turn back around. She threw him a prompting look.

"I'll be by Peter's at 9. Wear something you don't mind getting dirty."

She tried very hard to not let surprise show on her face, instead nodding.

They started walking back down the corridor together, their silence much easier.

"Peter thought you were still out of the country," she prompted conversationally.

"I was, but I completed my contract ahead of schedule," he answered vaguely. "Got back yesterday. I usually let Sophie know when I'm really back; she lets me know about my skips. The less Peter knows of my location, the better."

That was good sense, actually.

They silently made their way out of the restaurant and back out to the gravel parking lot. He appeared to be walking her to her car, but he kept walking to a black Camaro nearby.

"So does that make you the Big Bad Wolf?" she asked over the hood of her car, catching his attention just as he was getting back into his. He looked at her with a blank expression. "Since I'm Little Red Riding Hood."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Never said that. I was just referring to your hair… I like your take though, Red."

Good thing he took off out of the parking lot so quickly. He didn't see how red she blushed.

"**H**ey, Shortcake."

For a second, Lydia didn't realize the cop was talking to her. Derek was waiting in the SUV outside, but he was letting her frog march this skip in by herself.

For the last two weeks, he'd been her mentor. Predominantly silent, often frustrating, and always lethal, Derek 'Alpha' Hale was showing her the ropes, and letting her shadow some of his skips. Of course, there was a big difference between her cases and his.

On the second day, he had shown up with a flak vest in the back seat for her. When she asked him how much she owed him, he said nothing. "Having you taking skips helps clear up Boyd and Scott's schedule, and that in turn helps me," he had explained. "Consider it a thank you."

Of course, Stiles had found the new addition to her wardrobe a little concerning. He knew exactly what it was when he saw it on her couch. It had taken a little extra effort on her part to properly distract him.

Life was turning out to be pretty great. Lydia was pulling in steady money from her skips, and Derek insisted on giving her part of his share when she shadowed his cases. She and Stiles got together nearly every night, though usually they spent evenings in his place. They'd even made it Facebook official, for all that was worth. He was sweet, attentive, and doting. He opened doors, he pulled out chairs. If he got a call in the middle of the night, he'd make it up that day with flowers or dinner. Essentially, he was the antithesis of Jackson, and that was what she needed, right?

But, and there was always that nagging 'but', it really seemed to bother him that she was really set on becoming a decent bail enforcement agent. He didn't come out and say anything, he just…he made it known he wasn't happy about it.

Okay, and if she was going to be honest, she had woken up from more than one X-rated dream starring her mentor. With the amount of time they were spending together, it had to happen at some point, right?

That was what she was telling herself.

"Shortcake," said the officer again, just as Lydia was starting to head for her body receipt, and now it was obvious he was talking to her. "Stilinski said you'd be in today. Can I help you with anything?"

"'Shortcake?'" she repeated, still incredulous.

Another officer walking by stopped to join in the conversation. "As in 'strawberry shortcake'," she clarified, and made a horrible attempt at stifling her grin. "That's what your boyfriend calls you, right?"

This was news to her. Oh, she and Stiles were going to have a _long_ talk later. She took off towards the counter she was initially headed to.

When she got back in the SUV, she may have slammed the car door a little more loudly than necessary. Derek looked over at her, bringing the phone away from his ear. "Problem?"

"Just drive, _Alpha_," she snapped as she fumbled with the buckle. She had made it very clear early on that she wasn't going to call him by the stupid nickname, at least when they were alone together. "I'm feeling like I need to tackle someone."

There was a split-second of annoyance that flashed over his face (he hated being given orders, and she couldn't stand when he barked them at her, but they were finding some middle ground, agreeing to share the bossy pants) before it slipped beyond his blank mask. He hung up the call and put the SUV into drive.

Their next skip was one she had tracked down. Even though it was Derek's, he'd promised her a 50-50 split if she could find him. He was a small-time crook who had decided to move up in the criminal world and start running guns. There were an alarming number of bodies showing up around town, and Lydia had started wearing her vest more often, even on her own cases. She guessed she had this guy to thank.

It hadn't taken very long to find him. She found out a little background information on him, and then, unbeknownst to Derek, had decided to run some probability formulas. The skip had no known ties in the area, but a few places he was known to haunt. She could go with her gut on where she thought he might be – the friend's girlfriend's house – but she knew she would feel a little more certain of the location as his hiding spot once she ran some numbers. It had been some time since she'd done anything like this, and never outside of a classroom. She had to hunt down a few of her old textbooks, but when Derek had asked 'where to' and she'd rattled off the address, he hadn't questioned it.

She knocked on the front door of the trailer as Derek circled around to the back. Her heart beat a little faster as she checked that her fake badge (like she had the money to get a real license to be a bounty hunter, the internet made things much cheaper, like discounted _Dog_ show costumes) was on the outside of her button down shirt hiding her vest.

The friend's girlfriend came to the door, and Lydia wasn't a human lie detector like Derek, Boyd, or Scott, but she recognized that the girl was nervous. When she told her that she worked for Peter, there was a sound like a bang of metal on metal followed by gunshots from behind the trailer, and Lydia didn't even think, she took off in the direction of the back, leaning to over to grab awkwardly at the gun on her hip holster as she went.

The strange position meant she was half hunched over, and one shoulder was up. Unintentionally, it was the perfect position get the skip in the gut as he came sprinting around the corner. He grunted as the air was knocked out of him and she landed on top of him.

She came to her senses a little quicker than the man she'd taken down, and so she used his surprise to allow her to roll him over onto his chest.

"Red?" She could hear him moving, dirt scraping with his actions. Well, she guessed that Derek was okay.

"I've got him!" she called out, moving to sit higher up on the squirming man's back, remembering that men had a higher center of gravity than women, and hoping that this would actually help. She scrambled to find the handcuffs on her belt, and was able to secure the first one to a flailing arm. Her voice was a little more shrieky than she had hoped for.

"I'm not going," the man below her yelped. "I didn't do it!"

Derek came into view from around the side of the trailer and seemed to pause for a moment when he saw Lydia's position. Not her best, she knew, but it was effective. He helped her secure the second cuff.

"I don't really care if you did or didn't. This is our job," he explained calmly.

"But it wasn't me!" the skip said, practically whining. "You've got the wrong guy."

Derek slammed the door shut, but it did little to silence their captive, since the passenger seat front window was down.

The man beside her growled under his breath, "Asshole shot me."

"He shot you?!" She turned to look and sure enough, his arm was a big, bloody mess.

"It's not a big deal," he told her, speaking over their indignant captive in the backseat. "I'll get patched up after we-"

"I swear I'm innocent, it's Jackson Whittemore you want!"

Lydia's stomach lurched. She whipped her head around. "_What_?" she asked, except it sounded weird, and then she realized why.

Derek had the same reaction she had.


End file.
